: he abjured,
and was dismissed heartbroken. This was on the seventeenth of February. He
was only able to endure his wretchedness for a month. At the end of it, he
appeared at a secret meeting of the Christian Brothers, in "a warehouse in
Bow Lane," where he asked forgiveness of God and all the world for what he
had done; and then went out to take again upon his shoulders the heavy
burden of the cross.

The following Sunday, at the church of St. Augustine, he rose in his seat
with the fatal English Testament in his hand, and "declared openly, before
all the people, with weeping tears, that he had denied God," praying them
all to forgive him, and beware of his weakness; "for if I should not return
to the truth," he said, "this Word of God would damn me, body and soul, at
the day of judgment." And then he prayed "everybody rather to die than to
do as he did, for he would not feel such a hell again as he did feel for
all the world's good."[551]

Of course but one event was to be looked for; he knew it, and himself wrote
to the bishop, telling him what he had done. No mercy was possible: he
looked for none, and he found none.

Yet perhaps he found what the wise authorities thought to be some act of
mercy. They could not grant him pardon in this world upon any terms; but
they would not kill him till they had made an effort for his soul. He was
taken to the Bishop of London's coal cellar at Fulham, the favourite
episcopal penance chamber, where he was ironed and put in the stocks; and
there was left for many days, in the chill March weather, to bethink
himself. This failing to work conviction, he was carried to Sir Thomas
More's house at Chelsea, where for two nights he was chained to a post and
whipped; thence, again, he was taken back to Fulham for another week of
torture; and finally to the Tower, for a further fortnight, again with
ineffectual whippings.

The demands of charity were thus satisfied. The pious bishop and the
learned chancellor had exhausted their means of conversion; they had
discharged their consciences; and the law was allowed to take its course.
The prisoner was brought to trial on the 20th of April, as a relapsed
heretic. Sentence followed; and on the last of the month the drama closed
in the usual manner at Smithfield. Before the fire was lighted Bainham made
a farewell address to the people, laying his death expressly to More, whom
he called his accuser and his judge.[552]

It is unfortunately im